SRINAGAR: In a week’s time since the first Covid-19 patient was detected in Kashmir, the J&K government has only managed to test less than 1 percent of the population. Doctors say they are not sure who are the primary carriers of the virus in Jammu & Kashmir and who the contacts of the primary carriers.
Out of a population of 70 lakh in Kashmir, around 400 patients have been tested in the past week, according to government figures. Of these, around 30 have been tested positive in the Valley.
According to a senior doctor, who has been seeing suspected cases at a Covid-19 designated hospital, since December last year, about 15,000 Kashmiris have returned from Umrah in Mecca, but only 2,000 of them have been screened. The first positive case in Kashmir was also an Umrah pilgrim.
During the same period, about 10,000 tourists including foreigners have entered the valley, besides thousands of Kashmiri students who have returned from foreign countries and other regions of India.
“They are the primary carriers. They have been here for some time now. I don’t say that all of them are potential carriers, but
whosoever is, and does not know it, could have passed it on to others, creating a chain of potential positive cases,” said the doctor,
requesting anonymity.
“The way to fight the virus is to track all of them, screen them, and quarantine them. Right now we know only a minuscule number of cases, a number which gives us no picture about the potential spread of the disease in Kashmir Valley,” he added.
Dr Muhammad Salim, a doctor designated to speak to the press on Covid-19, told Kashmir Reader that the number of Covid-19 patients coming to designated hospitals is less than 40 a day, on average. Out of these, he said, a person who has travel history, or has shown symptoms, or has come in contact with an infected person, is tested.
“So, we test those who come to us,” Dr Salim said.
As of now, Kashmir can only test about 140 patients in a day at two testing facilities, one at SKIMS and the other at CD Hospital.
According to Dr Jan, medical superintendent of SKIMS, 90 tests can be conducted there in one go. At Chest Diseases (CD) Hospital, according to Dr Salim, 24 tests can be conducted in one go.
Under these circumstances, another senior doctor said, figuring out how many persons may be infected becomes impossible. So, the
process has to go on the way it has been going. This means that it cannot be said with certainty if the virus spread is under control or not.
The doctor cited the example of South Korea, where mass testing made it possible to understand the spread and contain it. He said South Korea tested 6,148 people per million, in contrast to the UK which tested 960 per million and the US which tested 350 per million.
Given the shortage of testing ability in J&K, the administration is focusing on enforcing a lockdown, throwing responsibility on people to containing the pathogenic disease, more than what it has been doing itself.
“Top nations have not been able to control it. We are working to control it by our own means. God will help us,” Doctor Salim added.

Junaid Nabi Bazaz